Philbert Photography

Supposed you pick a price out of your head because it’s similar more or less to a local competitor you may risk not be recovering all your costs and/or paying yourself a ridiculously low rate per hour. What if your competitor just picked their price out of the air too? Their cost is not your cost.

• CODB: Let say $20,000 is your expenses of being in business for a year. Some will say, "what", but you need to include costs to replace equipment every couple of years, health insurance, business insurance, investments in a retirement fund, etc. I include conservative estimates for 18 different standard business costs in this number.
• Average number of shoots: 40 per month or 2 per day. Even though you do more or less than this sometimes you need to use a year long average to make sure you are recovering all your expenses.
• Average cost per mile to operate a vehicle: $0.50 per mile. You should compute this from you actuals, but it’s likely to be more.
• Average miles driven per shoot: 30 miles. Only you know this. Again actuals are best.
• Your hourly rate: $30 per hour. This is based on the fact that the US dept of labor statistics says the average hourly rate paid in private industry is $27.70 per hour. I figure we are all better than average!
• The average still shoot takes 3 hours of your time. This is driving, shooting and post-processing. Sure, some take more and some take less but you want this number to be a comfortable average.

If I use some basic conservative assumptions in for what I should charge in my area I come up with the following:

• My cost to show up at a shoot is: $60.83 (used as an example)
  
• My shoot price should be: $150.86 (used as an example) 

While these numbers may not be your exact expenses I would argue that your actuals are more likely to be higher than this than lower. It’s important to do the work to track all your expenses and figure out what it’s actually costing you to show up and how much per hour you are paying yourself. Finally, I’d like to point out that if you are a photographer to start your business in an area and don’t do this kind of analysis and start charging a low price you are not just impacting yourself. You impact the ability of other real estate photographers in that market to recover their costs and charge a reasonable wage too. Once someone that does a reasonable job starts charging a low price it becomes difficult for others to market a similar product for more. I would argue there is a social responsibility aspect to recovering your expenses. You don’t just hurt yourself by charging to little; you effect others as well. In David duChemin’s book Vision Mongers, David explains, “photography might just cost more than it ever gives back... ” He goes on to say, “A great living, when it happens, is not the goal; it’s the by-product.” That, in a nutshell, sums it up. Don’t sacrifice your creativity, vision and passion for what you know in your heart you love to do in order to simply make a quick buck. Find your passion, seek out your vision, and shoot what you love to shoot!